When The Wire debuted on HBO in June 2002, with its sprawling tale of a police wiretap on a Baltimore drug dealer, few people tuned in. Even fewer would have predicted that the American crime drama, which made stars of Dominic West and Idris Elba, would go on to become arguably the first great boxset of them all, winning over millions of fans upon its DVD release.
Although the show finished up in 2008 – and there’s an extremely good chance you haven’t watched it since about 2011 – a new fan-made animation of the show’s opening credits has become a huge viral hit online, created by the formidable artist Elliot Lim, a professional artist whose produced opening sequence to the FX sci-fi romantic sitcom Man Seeking Woman.
If you loved The Wire – or even if you have any appreciation of graphic design – you can watch the short, played out to the Way down in the Hole theme tune, below:
